I was invited to talk to the foto students at Algonquin College
this week. About USER/LIVE THROUGH THIS.

Poster for my talk

Talking the talk

A good thing, too, seeing as how I treated that as a warm-up for
the big show. . .I’ve been invited to present the work on the main
stage at Flash Forward foto fest in Boston, this June.

Flash Forward is a huge festival put on every year by The
Magenta Foundation. It’s premise, what it’s built around,
is emerging fotografers in Canada, the U.S.A. and Great
Britain. They publish a swank book, mount a number of
exhibitions and have 3 days of presentations. I’d go into
it here but the best way for you to find out about it is to
go to their website.

ADVENTURES IN PUBLISHING

Funnily enough, it was last week’s post about getting rejected
by Steidl that made up my mind.

It wasn’t their rejection that made it up, it was the emails of
support and advice from a number of droolers who are in the
know about fotobooks and publishing, folks who have been
there, done that.

I have decided to publish LIVE THROUGH THIS myself.

When we first started this project I didnt
know what to think but alls i knew was i
didnt want to disappoint you or wast your
time!!:( Alls I could think is god this man
wants to help me and he dont even know
my full name or my background and he
wants me to make good with my son and
with your actions I knew you wouldnt give
up on me and i never had someone like
this before. I was blurry but still knew
what was goin on. I was more depressed
than happy cause drugs are all I knew
and you were teaching me how to carry
my life on the normal and i dont thank
you enough but you did it and thank you
Excerpt from Steph’s story, which will be part of the book.

I’m just plain not cut out to do the research, send off dummies
and hope. And even if it got picked up it would take an eternity
afterwords for it to come out. And who knows how much control
I’d have to cede?

Anyhow, it’s not like there are no models for self publishing
and distribution of fotobooks these days.

Page spread from 1st iteration of LIVE THROUGH THIS.
The final book will look much different.

So, that’s the news for now. Be prepared to follow along as I
jump thru the hoops and skate over the learning curves that
will be required to pull this off. Fortunately I already have a
small team assembled who are willing (and want) to help to
make this happen. (Thanks Paul and Pam.)

And be prepared, please and thank you, to support this
project as it rolls out (crowd funding) and made available
for sale (buy a copy or two, will yas?).

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

Regular droolers will be aware that I have an affinity
for fotografers publishing projects on newsprint. What
I most like is when the content of the project seems to
be modulated and informed by being a “newspaper”.

And my latest acquisition, “Cruel and Unusual”, really
fits the bill. A catalog for Prison Photography main-man
Pete Brooks curated show of photography of and relating
to prisons to be exhibited at the Noorderlight Photogallery
in The Netherlands, it is also a kind of record of the epic
roadtrip Pete undertook this summer to gather info and
images for his blog.

Pete calls this a newspaper and it really is. Lots of images
but also a whole bunch of text. It’s “the news” we don’t get
enough of.

Cover (open)

Page spreads

All the details about Cruel and Unusual here.
Prison Photography is here.

SPAO @ LPM

This past Saturday the second year students at the School
of the Photographic Arts Ottawa each took a print out for
a spin in a one nite only show at La Petite Mort Gallery. As
usual for a group show, a good crowd was on hand.

I teach each of these students but have neither the time
nor the inclination to go into any critical detail of the show.
Suffice it to say that it was swell to see the work up and a
good time was had by all.